Massively Multiplayer (28 page)

“And how did you finger Marcus Tenser?”

“Moral dilemma. Marcus always liked to design quests like morality plays. Drove some of the other designers nuts, but he was always insisting on it as the ‘unique vision’ of the Crucible system. Nobody knew what he was talking about, but he sounded just like the sermon the hacker delivered in that pirate cave. Once I knew what I was looking for it was obvious. So, how did you figure it out?”

“Bricks.”

“My turn to say ‘huh?’”

“All programmers are essentially lazy. They copy and paste their own work or steal other programmers’ designs as a matter of habit. Why reinvent the wheel, or the compiler for that matter? So I ducked down into one of the shadow zones and found a tightly repetitive chunk of architecture – in this case, a wall of geometrically uniform bricks. Nobody would ever go in and design all those things by hand when he could just make a template and stamp them out by the millions. Our hacker has been very careful to remove any traces of his identity from his code, but I figured that on a template-driven bit of auto-replication like that, he wouldn’t think of it. So I grabbed some bricks from a wall and took them apart.

“But how did you access the code level? I thought all programming avatars burst into flames when they tried to enter a shadow zone.”

“They do,” Marybeth nodded. “So I didn’t go in as an avatar, I went in with my character. Amitra dug some bricks out of the wall, brought them back to the surface, and transported them outside the shadow zone to a nearby field. Then I logged out, booted up my angel, and took them apart. Marcus Tenser’s name was all over them, including the i.d. of the original computer he used for the design, the authoring software he used, and the device address where it was stored until he uploaded it to the Crucible server. Would you like the punch-line?”

“Hit me.”

“He stored it here, at Archimago Technologies. As far as I can tell, these shadow zones were early designs and unused quest elements from the
original
Crucible development cycle. That’s why everything looked like legacy work – it is. It also explains why so many of the zones are unfinished fragments. Then, when he wanted to upload it to the server, he just ripped it out of storage.”

“It also explains how he got into the house intranet,” Wolfgang pointed out. “He designed most of it. He probably left backdoors all over the system.”

Marybeth nodded. “Of course we still don’t know why he decided to do that now, or what he’s after.”

“I’m beginning to get an idea,” Wolfgang said, thoughtfully rubbing his beard.

Suddenly the red window bearing the image of Marybeth Langridge was thrust aside by a new, larger window. The figure which appeared within it was the same one which had appeared to Druin, Jenna and Malcolm in the island cavern, an indistinct humanoid shape wreathed in incandescent flame. From the shocked expression on Marybeth’s face, Wolfgang could see that she was receiving the message as well.

“Very well done, students,” the image said in the familiar chorus of whispers. “You got the Who, and the Where, and some of the What. Now all you need to do is figure out the Why and I’ll be really impressed.”

“You know, Marcus,” Wolfgang said quietly, “you could just try telling us.”

“Where’s the entertainment value in that?”

“Do we at least get a hint?” asked Marybeth.

The man-shaped shadow in the flame paused for a moment, then shrugged. “Ask your boss.”

And disappeared.

Chapter Thirteen – Relay Race

Jacob Hunter surveyed Andrew’s room bleakly. He took in the dresser, almost empty, the bookcase, almost full, the bed, unslept in. Most particularly he observed the desk, slightly dusty save for two rough oblongs where Andrew’s computer had sat. Dimples in the carpet showed where the virtualounge and its equipment had lain before Andrew’s friend had arrived to haul them away in his truck.

He was so intent that he didn’t register his wife’s approach until her arms slipped around his waist from behind.

“Depressing yourself?”

“Seems to be working,” he sighed. “I guess it’s time something did.”

“Good plan. I hear self-pity is going to be all the rage this year. Very hip. I’m sure it will go over well with the younger set.”

“So
that’s
the problem. Do you know that we’re so un-hip that the kid’s don’t even say ‘hip’ anymore?”

He felt her shrug. “So? Our parents didn’t talk our language, their parents didn’t talk theirs. I’m sure they’ll discover some lithographs some day of a young caveboy, running away from his cavefather, wailing ‘Him no understand Ook! Him no like Ook’s music! Ook generation reject you, old man!’”

Despite himself, he laughed.

“That’s better,” she said, edging around him to look into the room. “So, what are you doing, precisely? Is this the part where we cry because our little boy is all grown up, and then we turn his room into a shrine? I sure hope not, because I had my heart set on an AV lounge.”

He gestured at the bare walls, the absent furniture. “What is there to enshrine?”

“Good point.”

She walked further into the room, pointing out the orange soda stain on the carpet. “There. We could cut that out and hang it on the wall, maybe put some candles in front of it.”

“What about the books?”

She scanned the titles briefly. “No good. Most of these are from junior high or earlier. Everything after that was digital.” Her expression softened. “Jake, if you’re trying to find the key to your son in the stuff in his room, you’re going to be disappointed.”

“I’m already disappointed,” he grumbled. “In him, for not giving me a chance to explain what I meant. In me, for meaning the wrong thing in the first place. Cripes, Lynda, when did I become my father?”

She raised her hands in mock horror. “Oh my! I bet you’re the very first man to ever say that!”

“Thanks for the sympathy, Groucho.” He sat down on the end of the bed, his chin on his hands. “I’m serious. I had this great idea about coming and talking to him about maybe spending some time together, exploring some opportunities, and by the time it came out of my mouth it was a lecture, straight out of
The Hundred-And-One Most Condescending Speeches to Give Your Child.
Pathetic. No wonder he ran off.”

Lynda massaged his neck gently with one hand. “Look at it this way: he’s not rejecting you, he’s rejecting all of our generation and our outdated society. It’s what kids do.”

“Really?”

“No. In reality, nobody is that much a cardboard cut-out. But it’s nice to pretend when it hurts this badly.”

He relaxed slightly under her hand. “You’re witty. Why can’t I be witty? Why can’t my kids think I’m witty? Why can’t I talk to my kids? Better yet, you talk to my kids, you’re the witty one.”

She punched his arm playfully. “Nobody has ever successfully talked to their kids after they hit puberty. The most we can hope for is a vague understanding of why he thinks we’re so outdated and lame. What, specifically, did you say? I came in later and just sat there quietly, hoping he’d tell me on his own, like he used to, but got nothing.”

“I was telling him about the internship at Millerey Publishing and...”

“Oh Jake, you didn’t!” Lynda slapped her forehead, thought better of it and slapped his instead. “Come on, you were his age. What would be the
worst
thing a parent could do to you?”

“Beat me with an iron pipe and chain me in the basement without my gruel?” he hazarded. Seeing her expression, he held up his hands defensively. “All right, all right, it probably came across as controlling, I just...”

“Probably?
Probably
? Oh, Jake.”

“Okay, my bad. I blew it. But I went past his room three times last night and he was goggled into his virlo.” He gestured helplessly at the dimples in the carpet. “For hours. It just seemed like he must be doing it because he was terribly bored. He’s so bright, you know? I was trying to help.”

“I know,” she relented. “But he
is
bright. Did it ever occur to you that he knows how to spend his time better than you think? Maybe better than even he thinks? Did you even ask him what it was he was doing instead of searching for internships at boring old publishing companies?”

“Hey, I work for boring old publishing companies.”

“So do I, dope. So did you ever wonder what it was that was more attractive to him? Or why?”

Jacob thought about it. “Gaming, I guess. I mean he has a whole library of stand-alones,” he gestured at the bookcase, “plus anything he could download.”

“We have trace on the house intranet, you know,” she suggested. “Maybe we could learn something about him by actually, you know, finding out what he’s into these days. Novel idea, huh?”

Jacob looked skeptical. “Wouldn’t that be like spying on him? Isn’t that a little intrusive?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Where did
you
go to parenting school?”

Bernardo Calloway came to work whistling. The remains of his father’s gift had complemented dinner nicely the night before, and there had been additional congratulatory messages waiting for him on his private account at home. The day was clear, an unusual event for the Washington coast, and a rare treat for Bernardo, who’s English upbringing had given him an appreciation of rare sunny days the equal of any Seattle native’s. He even chirped a greeting to Ms. Hernandez, whom he normally treated as slightly beneath his notice. This earned him fresh coffee, unasked for but appreciated (the brandy had been
very
good after all) and in general, Bernardo thought the morning was shaping up to be a fine one indeed when unfortunately Wolfgang Wallace barged in and had to spoil the whole damned thing.

“Mr. Calloway, we have to talk. Seriously.”

“Oh, good morning Walters—“

“Wallace.”

“—Wallace, of course, do forgive me. Coffee? I can have some made up in a trice.” He waved at his desk. “Ms. Hernandez, coffee please for.—“

“Thanks for the offer Mr. Calloway, but this is a pretty serious issue, and I’ll need a decision from you and then I need to get right back to it.”

Calloway’s face fell. “What is it? More to do with that little hacking thing?”

“I’m afraid so. And I’m afraid it’s not so little.”

Wolfgang took ten minutes to update Bernardo on their progress tracing the extent of the intrusion, and capped it off with last night’s revelation.

“...And just as Ms. Langridge and I had independently reached that conclusion, Marcus – Mr. Tenser – confirmed it himself. He opened up a three-way v-chat, taunted us a little bit, and then signed out before I could even think to trace the communication. I’m not sure it would have done much good anyway. My desktop isn’t really rigged for security work, and what there is was likely installed by Marcus himself. He wrote the majority of our intranet’s protocols. However, I may have a source for some more robust traceware. Ms. Langridge mentioned that some of her friends from school went on to do government security work, and—“

“No!” Bernardo’s objection was so loud it startled himself. “No,” he continued more quietly, “I thought we’d gone over this. It is vitally important that we handle this in-house. We can’t afford the bad publicity which a major security breach like this could generate.”

He stood and began pacing. “You’ve got to understand my position here, Wallace. I’m installed as the new chief executive to oversee the largest rollout project in the company’s history, and we have a major problem like this within two weeks? How do you think that will make me look?”

“Mr. Calloway, as I explained, Marcus is using data sets and backdoors in the security program which date back at least nine years. No-one could possibly blame you.”

“Couldn’t they?” Bernardo asked bitterly. “Are you under the impression that the business world is a very logical one, Mr. Wallace? No, don’t answer that like a programmer -- I’ve spent the last two years next to blokes like you, and I know that a computer is an eminently logical piece of equipment. But you’ve been in management almost as long. Tell me, do you really think I wouldn’t be hung out to dry for this?”

“I suppose you’re right,” Wolfgang said slowly.

“You know I am.”

“But where does that leave us?”

“It depends on whether we have whatever it is this Tenser fellow wants.
Have
you figured out what he wants, yet?”

Wolfgang hesitated. He hadn’t told Bernardo of Marcus Tenser’s cryptic final comment. “That’s our priority right now.”

“Good. In the meantime, we control the damage. You say he hasn’t actually disrupted service to the customers.”

“No,” Wolfgang shook his head. “And now that I know it’s Marcus, I’d be very surprised if he did. He loves gaming, gamer culture, and he loves this game. He devoted a lot of his talent to creating it. I can’t see him doing anything to essentially harm it.”

“Good, perhaps we can rely on that then. You don’t suppose that’s a clue to his motive, is it? Simple jealousy, now that the company’s been, ah, bought up? Answer me honestly, Wallace.” Bernardo looked anxious.

“I don’t think that would be enough to explain his behavior. After all, he despised parasites like Kipling and his crew a lot more. So far, the new management by Vital Enterprises seems to have been benign. And you personally seem both more technically savvy and a lot more interested in the welfare of the clients, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“Ri-ight,” said Bernardo with a trace of discomfort. “Yes. Them. Our chief concern, all right.”

“Sir?”

“So, if Tenser loved his work so much, why did he leave?” asked Bernardo, changing the subject.

“He got drafted.”

“Pardon me?”

“Marcus Tenser held a commission in the Army Reserves. They paid for his education. But he had been inactive for years. Then one day, out of the blue, some guys in uniform came out to the island and informed him that he was required. They locked themselves in a room with him for about three hours and when he came out, he submitted his resignation. He stayed on just long enough to hire me and familiarize me with the system, and then took off to Washington D.C. I exchanged e-mail with him for a few years, but the last time was about eight years ago.”